Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973 and widely regarded as one of the most important and influential acts in the history of power pop and hard rock. The band coalesced from years of Midwest musical evolution — guitarist and primary songwriter Rick Nielsen and bassist Tom Petersson had been playing together since the late 1960s under names including Fuse and Sick Man of Europe, with Fuse releasing a debut album on Epic Records in 1969 before dissolving. After a European tour and a return to Illinois, the two recruited drummer Bun E. Carlos (born Brad Carlson) and vocalist Robin Zander, completing the classic lineup. The band's name reportedly came from Petersson watching a Slade concert and remarking that the band was using "every cheap trick in the book." From the beginning, their visual presentation was as distinctive as their sound — the contrast between the boyish good looks of Zander and Petersson and the deliberately eccentric personas of Nielsen and Carlos became part of the band's identity.
After years of relentless touring across the Midwest and a 1975 demo that caught the attention of Epic Records, Cheap Trick released their self-titled debut in 1977, followed quickly by In Color (1977) and Heaven Tonight (1978). The first two albums built a devoted cult following but found limited mainstream traction in the US. Heaven Tonight contained "Surrender," a track that became one of rock's great anthems of teenage rebellion and gave the band their first Hot 100 success. But it was what happened in Japan that changed everything. Cheap Trick's two 1978 concerts at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo were met with near-Beatlemania-level hysteria from Japanese audiences — crowds of screaming fans that caught the band entirely off guard. The recordings from those shows were released as Cheap Trick at Budokan, initially as a Japan-only release. Demand for import copies in the US was so overwhelming — an estimated 30,000 imported before the domestic release — that Epic rushed out an American version in February 1979. It became the band's commercial breakthrough, going triple platinum in the US and spawning the top 10 hit "I Want You to Want Me," which peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached number one in Japan.
Dream Police (1979) continued the momentum, reaching number six on the Billboard 200, and by 1980 Cheap Trick was headlining arenas. The years that followed brought creative and commercial fluctuation — a string of albums through the early and mid-1980s that kept the band active without recapturing the commercial heights of the Budokan era. Their second commercial peak arrived in 1988 with Lap of Luxury, a platinum Top 20 album anchored by "The Flame," a power ballad that became their only number one single on the Billboard Hot 100, spending two weeks at the top. A Top 10 cover of Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" from the same album added to the moment. The band's 1999 cover of Big Star's "In the Street" became the theme song for the long-running TV series That '70s Show, introducing a new generation to the band's sensibility.
Cheap Trick has released more than 20 studio albums across five decades, with total record sales exceeding 20 million worldwide and more than 40 international gold and platinum certifications. They have performed live more than 5,000 times. In 2016, on their very first nomination, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — recognition long overdue for a band whose influence on subsequent generations of rock and pop artists is deep and well-documented. Bands from Cheap Trick's own era and every era since have cited them as a foundational influence. Their catalog, from the debut through the Budokan recordings to Dream Police and beyond, helped define what rock and roll could sound like when melody and power were treated as equals rather than competing values.
Wayne Dennon photographed Cheap Trick as part of an archive that spans rock history from its golden era forward. Few bands have remained as reliably themselves across as many decades as Cheap Trick — Zander's voice, Nielsen's guitar, and the band's commitment to the live experience have never wavered, and Wayne's images capture a band still fully in command of the stage they helped build.
